Personal Compuer Games


Ghostbusters
By Activision
Commodore 64

 
Published in Personal Computer Games #14

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters has some beautiful touches. The first is the horrible ghostly laugh that drifts out of the set when the game is loading. Then on comes the chart-topping theme music, with the words appearing line by line on the screen so you can sing along - brilliant!

Bopping around on the chair, I intrepidly pressed the F1 key and went into the game itself. Your first task is the rather mundane one of getting your spook-hunting franchise and getting a loan from the bank.

The next screen displays a selection of ghostbusting equipment and their prices, and you have to consider how best to spend your resources. The hardware includes a choice of car (from coupe to station wagon) and traps, bait, image intensifiers etc. The next step is to press E, which shows you a map of the town, with your position represented by the Ghostbusters logo.

Ghostbusters

Your aim is to catch 'slimers' and stop 'roamers' from reaching the dreaded Temple of Zuul. Roamers are yellow ghostly creatures, and quite easy to catch by freezing them. Pressing the fire button, you then see a representation of your car on a three-lane road and when they appear you suck them in with your vacuum. Slimers aren't such a doddle.

Stopping outside a red flashing house which means there's a slimer inside, you press the fire button. When you get there, you have to deposit the trap, station your men and catch the blighter. For this, you receive money. If you manage to catch enough slimers and avoid paying damage when the marshmallow man appears (press B quickly) then you might make it to the Temple...

To reach the Temple of Zuul you must be able to cover your bank loan, then creep past the patrolling marshmallow man to reach the top of the building and confront Zuul.

Ghostbusters

The four kinds of screen you see aren't graphically brilliant but definitely come up to standard. Difficulty is determined by the amount of Psycho-Kinetic energy (PK) in the town. As your PK goes up, the harder it gets. The PK will rise drastically if you miss any of the ghosts. When it reaches major proportions - around 10,000 the Keymaster and Gatekeeper will reach the temple and you, unfortunately, are bankrupted and foreclosed by the bank.

Body-popping music, good graphics and an obvious sense of fun, I felt this game lived up to its hype and will be a real blast for people who enjoyed the movie.

Chris Anderson

The presentation and initial impact of this program are unbelievable. The music and speech could hardly be bettered. And small touches, like the way you use a fork-lift to load your car, are so slick it's unreal.

Ghostbusters

The game itself might not work, were it not for the fact that it succeeds so well in recreating the feel of the film. Cynics will say the gameplay is terribly simple, but thanks to the music and the overall structure of the game, most people will find it offers hours of entertainment.

Bob Wade

Uh, oh, slimed again! And laughed at as well! The music and speech synthesis are tremendous and can only add to what is already a very good game.

The two city stages of the game are fairly simple but the challenge is getting enough money together and this, combined with the delightful graphics and music, I found it a great game to play.

Ghostbusters

It might have been nice to have variation in the way you capture the slimers, but overall it's a winner.

Peter Connor

I don't usually play around with the supernatural and Ghostbusters hasn't really made me much more enthusiastic.

The problem is lasting interest. Essentially, you just drive around trying to catch slimers. This isn't terribly easy, but it isn't terribly varied either.

It may well take a long time to get more money than you started with, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be interesting. I don't think this game is everything it's cracked up to be.

Samantha Hemens

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